POSTMODERN PROPHET:
Casting a vision for a new generation
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--Andrew Jones stands between two worlds--the one that has been and the one that is coming. He's trying to build bridges between believers on both sides of the divide.
___Jones leads the Boaz Project, a two-year effort initiated last year by the Baptist General
Convention of Texas to help launch new ways of doing ministry. The project is helping a new generation start churches "that make sense, ... finding structures that work," he said. The project is "an attempt to create a support system for the new churches that are being birthed."
___Jones, 37, is a special consultant to the BGCT's Church Starting Center and church missions and evangelism section on matters related to postmodernism and the emerging generation.
___"This project is connecting us with the emerging generation and their deep spiritual hunger," explained E.B. Brooks, coordinator of the BGCT's church missions and evangelism section. "I am convinced that unless we develop relationships with the spiritual leaders of the people with this worldview, we will not be nearly as effective in evangelism in the next 30 years as we have been in the past.
___"God is raising up a corps of ministers all over the world who can speak the language and experience the worldview of a group of people who see things much differently than traditional Baptists," Brooks explained. "I am amazed at their spiritual insight, their deep appreciation for the history of God's work and God's people and their ability to worship God with all their senses."
___The project is named for the Boaz of the Old Testament, who helped connect Ruth with the existing faith community. Ruth, in the analogy, represents the "young, vulnerable, alternative churches," Jones said. "She clings to Naomi, ... who represents ministries that once were plentiful." Naomi "committed herself to the next generation."
___"We want to cover the next generation," Jones said of the Boaz Project. There is a "commitment to see the gospel fleshed out in the emerging generation."
___"Postmodern" is the word most-frequently used to describe the new worldview that is replacing the modern. The modern world, with its fixations on knowledge and belief in rational science, is giving way to a "world of transition."
___In this new worldview, "nothing is certain and anything is possible," explained Dallas missionary-pastor Mark Thames at a recent church-starting conference in Waco. Postmodernism is a "fundamental change" in how people view the world.
___"Modernity has constrained how we do church," Thames said, "and now that is going away."
___That's where Jones comes in, as he seeks to connect the modern church with a postmodern culture that looks very different at times.
___Jones' passion for starting churches grew out if his work with street kids in San Francisco, he said. They would come to faith in Christ and then go back to their hometowns to get their lives together. But they found no churches they could connect with when they went back home.
___Jones' vision was to see a network of churches develop around the world so that "anywhere they will go there will be a life-giving church" with which they can connect. "We are helping them start their own churches and linking them in with the wider body of Christ for accountability and encouragement."
___The common thread tying together these churches and ministries is a "commitment to see the gospel fleshed out in the emerging generation," Jones said.
___To facilitate this passion, Jones and his family maintain a base in Austin but frequently travel elsewhere. In 1999, for example, they put 25,000 miles on their Winnebago, circling the continental United States twice. In the past year, they have spent time in five countries.
___In Austin, they are members of First Baptist Church.
___Jones has been a missionary and pastor since 1985, working in more than 20 countries. He has taught in Bible colleges and lectured at seminaries. He consults with churches, denominations and mission agencies and writes a weekly column.
___From his perspective on postmodern ministry, some of the most creative work in Texas is being done by Baptists, Jones said. "Baptists don't seem to have a stranglehold onto old forms."
___Texas Baptists are more creative because they have a strong biblical base, and that "frees you up to be as freaky as you want to be," Jones said. "You have a big, heavy anchor so you can go as far as you want."
___Working from that strong biblical foundation, Jones and others in the postmodern Christian community are "telling stories and throwing parties and making friends," he said. But Christ is always at the center.
___This is a worldwide movement, and the Boaz Project is "trying to create a global network."
___"We are collaborating with other networks and movements to create a global resourcing base, probably an online city/website," Jones said. "We are assisting other countries to collect and collate their resources and make them available to the global community through the Web."
___The Boaz Project also is consulting with churches, denominations and mission agencies about how they can "restructure with a view to the future and provide fluid structures for a new generation of missionaries and ministers who are emerging from a postmodern world," he said.
___"We are encouraging movements of God among the emerging culture, ... acting as supporters, cheerleaders, mentors, fathers and mothers to what God is doing," he said. "Sometimes it involves church planting. Most of the time it is leadership training, spiritual guidance, resourcing to partner with God."
___BGCT's Brooks is the "head cheerleader," Jones said. "He prays daily for us and is a huge encouragement. Without his blessing, vision and determination, nothing of what God is accomplishing through us would be happening. He is a Mordecai to the Esthers, a Boaz to the Ruths. We thank God for him."
___God is bringing together people from around the world to see the kingdom of God in new ways, Jones said. "We are working toward new apostolic structures that will allow a movement of God for the next generation."
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